


First Night

by rnagnumdong



Series: rt harry potter au [1]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Genderfluid Character, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-26
Updated: 2015-02-26
Packaged: 2018-03-15 07:33:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3438860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rnagnumdong/pseuds/rnagnumdong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ray's probably said three words to Ryan outside of hellos and excuse mes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Night

Ray sat on his bed in the Ravenclaw dorms. He had his curtains open, which he’d honestly forget about, because he was studying for transfiguration class. He was certain that the professor had just given them homework because they knew everyone hated transfiguration except for a few weirdos, and everyone also hated weekend homework. Clearly, the professor enjoyed the thought of having all their students despise them.

He groaned. He wished it had of been herbology homework. He loved herbology, it would have taken him two seconds rather than two hours. But no, he couldn’t get off easy for one weekend. He looked around the room. Three of the other boys who shared the dorm with him were off doing whatever. He didn’t know what, really, they were in different years than him and had entirely different schedules and lives he paid little attention to. Not that he was rude, of course, Acorndale was a pretty small school, compared to the ones in the muggle world, and he couldn’t afford to be rude. But most wixing schools were small, and he supposed he liked it better that way. It meant everybody knew everybody, and there were no real discouragements from interacting with the other houses or other years.

However, one person hadn’t taken the weekend to go hang out with friends, and was lying on his bed reading what Ray didn’t doubt was a textbook. It was Ryan Haywood, a sixth year, who Geoff said was taking “way too fucking many classes for the guy.” Ryan was the genuinely smart and applied Ravenclaw that the stereotypes spoke of and anytime Ray saw him he was either doing classwork or studying or making his friends laugh. Ryan’s friends were also Ray’s friends, but Ryan and Ray weren’t friends, which everyone thought was bizarre because Ray’d become friends easily with Jack, who was a Hufflepuff sixth year on the Quidditch team, which was everything Ray wasn’t. And he shared a dorm with Ryan and they’d probably said three words outside of polite hellos in the past four years.

Ray couldn’t help it, though. Ryan had never made any effort to talk to him, so Ray had returned the favor. Besides, Ryan should have been in Slytherin (not that Ray disliked Slytherins, Geoff and Gavin were Slytherins and they were great friends, but everyone knows how most Slytherins are, and Geoff and Gavin weren’t purebloods). Ryan was a pureblood, and everyone said he fit the part perfectly, even though he was basically the Ravenclaw poster boy. And even though Ray wished he could think everyone at Acorndale was nice and everything was so perfect and dandy, he couldn’t pretend like he didn’t hear the mutters of ‘mudblood’ as he passed by certain people in the hall. He could hide it from his friends, yes, he’d been doing that for years, but not from himself.

“Why are you staring at me?” Ray nearly jumped out of his skin at that, but he didn’t, which he was very proud of, because he realized that he had in fact zoned out staring at Ryan, and Ryan had very obviously noticed, and Ryan had a kind of stare that pierced your soul.

But, while Ray was still pretty awkward, his friendships had made him good with quick responses, and he replied, “I was wondering if you could help with my transfiguration homework.” He didn’t think too much about what he said before he said it, but it wasn’t entirely false. That wasn’t at all what he was thinking about, but if it meant Ryan did help him with his homework than it certainly wasn’t the worst thing he could be lying about.

Ryan narrowed his eyes, seeming to think for a moment, which made sense, because they’d just said more to each other in the past thirty seconds than they have their entire lives, but Ryan also had a fairly quick response. They did have the same friends, after all. “Sure. I’m a few weeks ahead on potions, anyway,” he said, setting his book aside and standing up, stretching a bit. It occurred to Ray that potions was one of the classes Jack had mentioning Ryan taking at N.E.W.T. level, which sounded like hell, honestly. “What is it you’re having trouble with?”

“Morrison gave us this math problem for cross-species switches, but it makes no sense whatsoever. It doesn’t supply all the information or something, I can’t find it,” Ray replied, showing him the parchment and shifting on the bed so that Ryan could sit beside him, which he couldn’t help but admit made him blush a little.

Ryan looked at the thing and rolled his eyes, sitting down. “It’s because Morrison’s a fucking idiot who doesn’t know how to write an algebraic equation. Those Xs mean times, which hardly anyone understands because you can’t use x to mean times when the entire problem is letters,” he explained, looking at the parchment and noting that no other work had been done, which meant that clearly Ray had more things he didn’t understand.

Ray frowned, starting to work out the problem. It was more mathematic than most things you got confronted with at Acorndale. “Algebraic equation?” he asked, guessing it was a math thing. Maybe he would learn that next year, or something, but he couldn’t think of any classes where it would make sense to learn math, except transfiguration, and, according to Ryan, Morrison had done that wrong, so he wasn’t the best professor for that.

“It’s a thing muggles learn in their schools. We should really learn it, too, but even with quite a few wixes working behind that social reform I doubt that it’ll come into play early enough for either of us to even have the option to take a class on it,” Ryan explained, rambling a bit. He sounded simultaneously angry and tired, as if this was something he was still very passionate about but he was just tired of having to fight for it. “Anyway, enough of that, you probably know more about the differences in muggle and wix education than me. What you need to know is transfiguration.”

Ryan explained a bunch of stuff about transfiguration to Ray. Despite what Ray might have thought earlier, Ryan was a good teacher, definitely better than Morrison. He wondered if the pureblood would be a professor when he got older, or if he was at least part of the tutoring program, because damn, this was a talent that certainly could not be wasted. His thoughts didn’t even drift away that much, except when he was doing that same math problem, which he discovered he was quiet good with. He hated learning about certain things, for all it was worth, so he put up a block for it most of the time, which was why he was barely passing a lot of his classes. But when someone pushed past that block and managed to teach him something? He caught on quiet quickly. He supposed that’s why the sorting hat had put him in Ravenclaw the second it touched his head.

Ray’s homework was done around an hour or so later, and he figured he’d learned more in that hour or so than he did in a month of Morrison’s class. “Thanks, Ryan,” Ray said, standing up and putting away his books and homework.

“No problem,” Ryan replied, standing up and stretching again, walking around the room absentmindedly in a way that Ray might have called awkward if he didn’t notice halfway into second year that, for whatever reason, Ryan really liked to be standing and walking. Ray used to think it was because he studied better like that, but Ryan studied more lying on his bed, though he did study sometimes pacing around the room. Ray was also aware that this was something that bothered Gavin more than anything that any of his friends did, because any time Ryan was mentioned Gavin would have a rant about it. Ray couldn’t really understand why it bothered his fellow fourth year so much. “You picked up on it quicker than most others do, anyway. I guess you’re as smart as Michael says.”

Ray chuckled, pleasing at hearing that Ryan tutored enough to know the average learning rate for most wixes. “Don’t trust anything Michael says about me. The way ze gushes about me all the time, you’d think I was Harry Potter,” he says, sitting back on his bed. He’s pleased with himself, how this conversation is going. His friends will be happy to hear he’s having a pleasant conversation with Ryan Haywood, who’s a magnificent teacher.

“Sounds like our little Gryffindor has a crush,” Ryan said, laughing. Ray immediately decided he liked Ryan’s laugh, and he was glad he’d been the cause of it.

“I bet ze does,” Ray said, his tone joking. “Ze pretty much adopted me as zir friend the moment ze saw me in the great hall. Clearly, it’s because I’m a hot piece of ass and any young wix would take the opportunity to be my first friend at Acorndale.”

Ryan laughed again. “Clearly,” he repeated, his eyes bright. Ray remembered that it was kind of weird to be having such a light and easy conversation with Ryan Haywood, who was a pureblood, at what was probably eleven at night. Ryan who had a weird obsession for muggle education that Ray wasn’t sure how he felt about. He remembered his first year, when he spent most of the free time he didn’t spend with his friends moping about how wixes apparently had this great fear of muggle technology, and he wasn’t able to bring along any video games, which he’d always been very good at and very proud of and he was certain all his new friends would enjoy as well. But while you could take muggle technology into Acorndale, there was no way to buy batteries and no electricity. It was like a permanent power outage. He wondered absent mindedly if this was something Ryan was passionate about as well. He thought Ryan cared too much about things that where weird to care about if you weren’t muggleborn.

“Why didn’t you go to Slytherin?” Ray asked, and he immediately regretted. He didn’t know why his brain didn’t like the nice conversation he was having with Ryan, and he especially didn’t know why it decided something he was embarrassed to be thinking of in the first place, and he didn’t know why it liked to zone out half staring at Ryan.

Ryan chuckled, though, his face only hardening a bit. “Slytherin? Is that what all the younger years are saying about me? That I should have been in Slytherin?” Ray nodded. That’s what most of Michael’s Gryffindor friends said, anyway. He thinks, absentmindedly, that Gavin would really like it if Ryan was a Slytherin. “I guess you can tell none of you were there when I got sorted. I don’t think the hat’s ever decided anyone sooner. I doubt the professor even got to move the hat before it put me in Ravenclaw. I don’t think that, given the chance, I would ask for anything else.” Ryan smiled at the memory, stopping his standing in favor of sitting down on his own bed, making Ray have to readjust to still be facing him. “I thought maybe taking almost all N.E.W.T. level core classes and a handful of electives would make talk of Slytherin Ryan Haywood die down a bit, but apparently not.”

“Well, yea, that’s the Most Ravenclaw Thing Ever, but a lot of sixth and seventh years are doing that. I hear Jack’s friend’s got the Hufflepuff time turner this year, even,” Ray stated. Of course, the time turner thing was only assumptions and theories, because any student in possession of a time turner wasn’t allowed to tell anyone. But most years someone from every house got one, so it didn’t take the students long to realize what was happening.

“None of them do it as hardcore as me, though,” Ryan deadpanned, his entire being looking more serious than Ray had ever seen him. Ray couldn’t help but burst out laughing, clutching his stomach and it kind of hurt but it was amazing. Ryan joined him soon after, but apparently the sixth year was naturally able to better restrain his laughter, either that or he was unable to tell when something was funny or not, because he looked less pained than Ray felt when he looked at him. Their laughter died down after a few long moments. Ryan smiled, and put on a brave and determined face. “So, why have you been avoiding making friends with me?”

Ray guessed pain had flashed across his face, because Ryan immediately looked regretful and looked like he was going to say sorry but Ray shook his head because apparently they were talking entirely through facial expressions now. “Is it not obvious? You’re a pureblood, I’m a muggleborn. Purebloods don’t usually play nice around muggleborns,” he replied, going straight for the point. Both of them knew how purebloods treated muggleborns. Everyone who knew about wixes about had to know, unless they’d managed to hide themselves in a specific part of it where prejudice didn’t exist. If that placed existed, Ray kind of wished he could live there.

“That makes sense, but I’ve been friends with people who would later become your friends since I got to Acorndale. I don’t think any of them would stay friends with anybody who did anything to you,” Ryan said, his face concerned and understanding and thoughtful.

“Yea, not if they knew that that someone did something, or if that someone was obvious about it, or something like that,” Ray agreed. “But you see, they don’t always know, and people can be very sneaky about their prejudices. And they’re all halfbloods. They understand, and they would do anything they could to protect me, but at the same time, they don’t understand. They wouldn’t be able to notice if someone didn’t like muggleborns unless they were very obvious about it, you know? Like, they wouldn’t notice how everyone laughs harder at my mistakes, or how most of them would never date a muggleborn, or how the thought of me making the Quidditch team is the funniest thing all year. I never would have tried out anyway, I’ve never liked sports and just because it’s with your dumb magical brooms and balls doesn’t make a difference. Besides, there are a lot of them, and they all have friends that aren’t ok with muggleborns that I haven’t bothered to tell them about. Because there’s a lot of them, and I don’t want to make them stop being friends with people just because they were mean to poor little muggleborn Ray.”

Ray stopped then, taking a few breaths. He’d rambled and said entirely too much, and he was ready to bolt for a second, but then he decided against it. It was his dorm, too, and Ryan was at the opposite end of the stick. Even if he didn’t understand, he knew, he had to know. Besides, he’d just told the pureblood he’d been avoiding for nearly four years things he didn’t even tell his four closest friends. He wasn’t about to go off and not have at least some preparation for whatever Ryan would do with the new information. He wished that Ryan wasn’t such an easy person to talk to.

Except Ryan only nodded. “Yea, there’s shit that happens that purebloods especially don’t notice, and halfbloods don’t notice, even if they have the best intentions. But I know Gavin and Geoff and Jack and especially Michael and I know that every one of them would, at the very least, stop talking to anyone who did something to you. I think Michael would beat half of them up personally. Hell, give me a goddamn list. I’m a pretty powerful part of the student body, if I dare compliment myself, I’ll make their lives a living hell as much as I can without causing them any physical harm.”

Ray starred at Ryan for a moment, wide eyed. Ryan’s face looked very determined, as if even the idea of dropping this was worthy of being sent to Azkaban for. Ray laughed abruptly. “I think you’ve been spending too much time with Michael. Ze’s filled your head with protective thoughts before you even properly met me.”

“Then, clearly, I need to stop spending so much time with Gavin, Geoff, and Jack as well, because all they do when given the opportunity is talk about how amazing you are and how you need to be protected at all costs and how we should have started being friends as soon as Michael decided you were zir new friend,” Ryan said, his face less determined now, smiling.

“They’re more persuasive than I thought, but they’re blatant liars. I think this was a good time to become friends.” Ray was smiling back, and it was nice. He and Ryan Haywood were smiling lazily back at each other and it was probably the nicest thing he’d experienced since Geoff and Gavin had invited him to the Slytherin dorms to hang out and he accidentally stayed too long to make it back to the Ravenclaw dorms and they’d ended up all snuggling in Geoff’s bed, which was definitely too small.

“Ah, but Ray, it seems we’ve wasted so much time when we could have been friends. Nearly four years, in fact, and I barely know anything about you!” Ryan said, laughing, eyes full of wonder as if he’d just found the most amazing thing ever and he couldn’t wait to show it around.

Ray laughed, too, even though he couldn’t pretend he agreed. He knew a lot of things about Ryan, while not knowing much about him either. He knew that Ryan always slept on his side, and if he woke up in the night he would get a cup of coffee before going back to sleep (which doesn’t make sense at all), and Ryan always liked to stay at least a few days ahead in all his classes, and he had this gentle snore that could lull anybody back to sleep (which wasn’t how snores were supposed to work), and he was either still as a board in his sleep or moved around so much he woke up on the floor. Ray decided that Ryan probably knew the same sort of things about him, and would like to know more. Ray was more than okay with this.

They spent another hour in that easy, teasing conversation, which was sort of like the rest of their friends but not quite. It was past midnight and getting kind of out of hand, they would both regret staying up that late in the morning. But even as they yawned, they pushed on with the same easy smiles and lights in their eyes and laughter. It was the weekend, anyway, most of their friends would be waking up late too.

There was a lull in conversation for a moment and Ray suddenly realized how tired he was, never being one to stay up late. Both of them were half-lying half-sitting on their own beds, which mainly meant for uncomfortable positions because that meant they either had to turn their head constantly or have half their body on the bed. Or they could not look at each other, which sounded more uncomfortable. Ray yawned, watching Ryan stretch. For whatever reason, the pureblood really liked to do that. Ray guessed it had something to do with his hatred of staying in one place for too long.

“I told Jack I would be there for moral support at his Quidditch practice tomorrow morning,” Ryan said, sounding like he’d already resolved to miss it.

Ray chuckled tiredly. “I don’t think Jack will let you get by with missing it. He probably knows the answers to half the questions the door could ask.”

“Exactly,” Ryan groaned. “I’ll get soaked with water before anyone has the chance to try to wake me up without trying to drown me in my own bed.”

**Author's Note:**

> thats kind of an abrupt end but i like this fic a lot.  
> this is going to be like 50% canon and 50% headcanon tbh. what ur probably most curious about is i have a headcanon that in the usa they thought it would be easier for every state to just have its own wixing school and acorndale is the one for texas. it leads to some pretty small schools but thats mainly due to, for whatever reason, the wix population being notably small. the small population thing i think is canon but i have no idea where i saw it so who knows.  
> i think i made it pretty clear in the fic itself but: ryan and ray are in ravenclaw, geoff and gavin are in slytherin, jacks in hufflepuff, and michaels in gryffindor.


End file.
